BuzzFeed reviewing Benny Johnson's work upon discovery of 'plagiarism'

7/25/14 11:30 AM EDT

BuzzFeed is conducting an internal review of editor Benny Johnson's work after identifying multiple instances of what editor-in-chief Ben Smith described as "plagiarism."

The instances were brought to BuzzFeed's attention by Twitter users @blippoblappo and @crushingbort, who cited six instances in which Johnson lifted passages from sites like The New York Times, Wikipedia, The Heritage Foundation and National Review Online without attribution.

“There are three serious instances of plagiarism in this post," Smith told Poynter on Friday.